


gardening at night

by binoculars



Category: The Phil Silvers Show
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26440159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binoculars/pseuds/binoculars
Summary: it takes a while to get the words out.





	gardening at night

Rocco knew he was in trouble from the night when he sprained his ankle. He and Ernie had crept out to tend to the heirloom peonies and were about fifteen minutes from camp, when, in the near total darkness, Rocco stepped into a hole, tripped, and heard something snap. On the ground, Rocco stuffed a hand into his mouth.

“What was that? Did you hear that?” hissed Ernie, before he glanced behind him and then down. “Oh, it’s only—get a move on! The fort’s liable to start crumbling in on itself if I’m gone more than ten minutes, and Washington, oh boy—would you get up already?”

Rocco breathed steadily through his nose as he collected his limbs. “Sure, Sarge.” He tested his weight on his right foot, then the left, then watched his vision double. He smelled the dirt in his nose and managed to get standing one-legged.

“What’s with this—you hurt yourself? C’mon, let’s get back, then you can get a nurse to look at it, eh?” He grinned and cupped the right side of Rocco’s face.

Rocco smiled, or maybe grimaced, and tried hopping. He sucked in a breath sharply between his teeth, and hopped again.

“Hey, none of that." His hands flitted from Rocco’s shoulders to his waist as he pulled Rocco’s left arm across his shoulders. “Comfy?”

Pressed against a warm body, Rocco realized how chilly the night was. “Like a Cadillac, Sarge.”

The pair of them limped slowly, and Rocco occasionally rushed out a breath as his foot was jostled between them.

The letter with a very familiar return address burned underneath his mattress for half a week before Rocco opened it. Then he sat on his bunk, just beneath Steve’s, and read it. He read it again, then put it down and started walking. Bilko stopped him halfway out the door, and then he was sitting in Ernie’s room with his mind filled with static and Steve squeezing his shoulder.

“I know a guy in chemicals, Calimati.” Ernie scribbled out a list. “Henshaw, go ask him for these and don’t let him get started on shortages, he never has enough fluorapatite until Sergeant Storrs is asking.” Rocco didn’t look at Steve as he dashed out of the room.

“Now, I know we started a peony stir last season, but I know a couple things about Grover’s new girl, and Fort Baxter’s about to be up to its ears in gardenias!” He slapped Rocco’s chest. Rocco’s head buzzed.

Pulling out a newspaper clipping, he continued, “I got an opinion piece last week about love languages and communication and whatnot, and Grover’s been in the doghouse lately, so I need you to—.” He turned to look at Rocco’s face, then turned back to the clipping. “Quiet, ain’t’cha? Musta sung your throat out at the dance—.” He looked up sharply. “Who died?”

“Nobody, Sarge, I just got a letter from my folks.” Rocco held eye contact. The last time he’d won a game of poker against Bilko was on his birthday.

“They all accounted for? What, was there a robbery? If your brother’s run off with another girl, I’m going right up there the next break I get, that homewrecker, the audacity—.” He wrapped an arm around Rocco’s shoulders. “Don’t make me guess, eh?”

Sitting this close, Rocco had to look up exaggeratedly to meet his eyes. “They’re just tired of dealing with this lifestyle, Sarge.”

“Army life getting ‘em down? That’s funny, it usually works the other way.” He cupped the back of Rocco’s head. “Anything else?”

It would be so easy to tuck his head into Ernie’s neck. “No, sir.”

“Alright.” 

He released Rocco, and Rocco couldn’t hear the buzzing anymore. In fact, he couldn’t hear a word Ernie said.

Rocco didn’t know how long he stood outside Ernie’s door in the middle of the night, but he wondered how Ernie had known he was there if he hadn’t knocked once.

Ernie waited at the doorway and quietly watched him collect the book he’d left there that evening. Rocco wished he could’ve stayed standing at the table with his back turned all night.

He turned, and Ernie had closed the door and was directing him to sit. Rocco was going to drown seven hundred miles away from the ocean.

They sat. For a long moment, Ernie did nothing but read his face. Then he cupped Rocco’s face with both hands, and Rocco felt his expression crumple, and then he was crying in a dark room with Ernie looking at him like he was watching a photo burn.

“Ernie,” he began, after a moment.

“I heard.”

“You heard?”

“Don’t you know by now I hear everything? Relax.”

He folded Rocco close, and Rocco thought, as he caught his breath back under his ribs, that Ernie smelled like sandalwood and roses.

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song by R.E.M. to the person reading this: thanks for being one of the 3 people on earth who have sought out bilko fanfiction. sorry i couldn't give you better


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